The Beat Surrender

Last year a band came from pretty much nowhere top deliver one of the best albums of 2008 with their self titled debut effort, it crashed into our end of year top ten and when the chance came earlier this year to see them live I took it.

A Place To Bury Strangers were evenmore blistering than on record, they have a tour coming up soon and they really aren’t to be missed. The tour is in support of their new album Exploding Head and having had the priveledge of reviewing it recently I can say it’s on a par and possible even better than their debut.

I caught up with this astonishing band recently for our second chat with them…

You’ve just released your second album Exploding Head, tell us about that, the recording of it and how it differs from the debut etc…

I am very happy with Exploding Head and think it came out just the way we wanted. I really wanted to go for more of a live feel with this record and record it all at once to really make it play like an album. We started recording about 20 songs that were really fast paced and noisy and then as that started to get assembled into the record there were more songs recorded which really levelled everything out and gave the record the right flow.

Everything was done very minimally with this record and we spent a lot more time focusing on the actual sounds that we were recording. I think because of the time we had and what was going on in our lives at the time it really shaped the record into what it is.

While there are differences between the two records that are obvious, it’s also a continuation of where you left off in some respects, was it important to ensure that both albums dovetailed, especially when you transfer this into the live arena.

I think that since we are still into the music that we made on the first record the newer material is a natural continuation of that. What we are doing is evolving with every live show and everything else that we do. Also, I am not afraid to change everything up, it is all about being satisfied myself. I think it is essential to create something you like and then it becomes unimportant what other people think of it.

What’s your favourite track on the new record and why?

Keep Slipping Away because it emerged most directly from my consciousness out of all of the songs on the record. It was written in a couple of hours and was recorded about a week before the album was finished.

You’ve changed record labels between releases, can you tell us how that came about?

Mute came to a bunch of shows and were interested in working with us. Upon meeting everyone it became quite apparent that they are the right kind of label you want to work with. Not only am I such a fan of a lot of the records they have put out but they are music lovers at heart, so it is like working with a big small indie label. People who are into music helping to improve this music industry by putting out what they believe in.

Your shows were really well received over here earlier in the year and I was blown away by the gig at The Cockpit in Leeds, what is it from your point of view that you feel the audience love so much about APTBS shows?

I think you can’t really go see anything else like it. Either bands are trying to be really slick and sound really good or they are trying to sound fucked up for the sake of it. I think what we are doing is writing pretty songs and playing them dangerously.

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